No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructur...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
200
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (5th), HCI (2nd), Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) (1st), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (5th)
Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appl...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Storage Solutions solutions, they serve different purposes. Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) is designed for HCI and holds a mindshare of 9.1%, up 8.9% compared to last year.
Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance, on the other hand, focuses on Modular SAN (Storage Area Network), holds 6.1% mindshare, up 4.6% since last year.
HCI Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)9.1%
VxRail10.4%
VMware vSAN8.5%
Other72.0%
HCI
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance6.1%
HPE 3PAR StoreServ12.4%
NetApp FAS Series10.7%
Other70.8%
Modular SAN (Storage Area Network)
 

Featured Reviews

JD
Dsi at OFFICE PUBLIC DE L HABITAT DE ROUEN
Hyper-converged storage has improved performance and now supports high redundancy for our VMs
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) was transparent because we were on a regular infrastructure before. We went on NCI and were able to improve performance, but it did not really change how things worked. The performance was really better for applications and access times to the data. I regularly looked at the analytics to see what was going on in my servers and what it was saying to optimize performance. It was pretty interesting because it could analyze and give insights on how to get things working better. In the latest versions, the Prism interface has been replaced by Prism Central. This requires another machine to be deployed to manage the servers.
RM
IT Consultant at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
A stable unified storage system that enables quick access to data
The main thing Oracle can improve is the cost. It would be better if Oracle opened up the system to enable integration with other vendors. Whether it's the database, application server, or storage appliance, they should make it easy to integrate them. They need to open up more to ensure that it can work in any environment and IT ecosystem.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"One of the most valuable features is the One-Click Upgrade. When I need to update the system, I do it with one click. This product is amazing because everything is easy to manage, from network management to snapshots."
"Simplified management: It provides us more time to work on other tasks."
"It can help my customers achieve their business goals in the simplest way."
"Nutanix has improved my company because it's 100% stable and the simplicity of management is amazing."
"The technology of Nutanix Acropolis AOS is the most valuable feature. You don't need multiple screens to manage."
"The console and managing are user-friendly."
"A great feature involves real-time hardware changes."
"The solution remains stable across versions."
"Very good analytics Very easy to configure."
"Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance is a very stable and durable product that's very strong and mature."
"I like its storage capacity, quick access to the data, speed, and overall storage management."
 

Cons

"I would like to see Acropolis add the ability to migrate VMs between storage containers. I don't know if they've added this in the latest versions, but I haven't seen it yet. It's mainly about AHV. When we use VMware, we can move between storage containers. In VMware, it's just like regular storage, and we can move it."
"The licenses for Nutanix are very complicated."
"Reduce its power consumption."
"While the customer support is truly incredible, for Spanish speakers it would be appropriate to have support in their native language to further improve problem-solving conditions."
"We feel that the cost for capacity is still more expensive compared to other solutions."
"It does not have good backup feature tools, like having templates or being able to back up every two or three days."
"The improvement needed is for elastic clusters, meaning the ability to depart and join nodes in an automatic way."
"Lacks sufficient integration with other vendors and public clouds."
"The main thing Oracle can improve is the cost. It would be better if Oracle opened up the system to enable integration with other vendors. Whether it's the database, application server, or storage appliance, they should make it easy to integrate them. They need to open up more to ensure that it can work in any environment and IT ecosystem."
"Uptime. We had some crashes here and there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The software only licensing model is priced normally, but the licensing model that comes with hardware is priced very high. You can choose to pay the license yearly, or you can pay every three years, or every five years."
"Nutanix is cheaper than Cisco HyperFlex, although it depends on the configuration because Nutanix can also be expensive."
"Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure’s pricing is very good and competitive."
"The license is quite clear to me. It's much clearer than what we had with our previous virtualization environment. The licensing is not complex to understand."
"Nutanix Acropolis AOS price includes no additional costs for features."
"Our licensing fee on the total setup up was about R900 000."
"It is not cheap, but if you look at the return on investment and the total cost of ownership, it is worth the price."
"Our Nutanix license is for five years. There is a support arrangement there, but that aspect is more or less taken care of during the initial installation. With HCI architecture, whenever we do any kind of auto scaling or scaling of servers and resources, there is a significant amount of software licensing involved."
"The price could be better. We have many competing products now like Huawei and Dell EMC, and these are slightly cheaper."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which HCI solutions are best for your needs.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user244362 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Consultant with 51-200 employees
Aug 30, 2015
Nutanix vs. VMware EVO:RAIL vs. FlexPod
Originally posted at www.storagegaga.com/dont-get-too-drunk-on-hyper-converged/ I hate the fact that I am bursting the big bubble brewing about Hyper Convergence (HC). I urge all to look past the hot air and hype frenzy that are going on, because in the end, the HC platforms have to be aligned…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Construction Company
13%
Healthcare Company
10%
Insurance Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business93
Midsize Enterprise76
Large Enterprise88
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How do I choose between Cisco Hyperflex HX Series and Nutanix Acropolis AOS?
Cisco HyperFlex HS series vs Nutanix Acropolis AOS Cisco HyperFlex gives extended hyper-convergence functions from core to edge and multi-cloud environments. It helps IT and OT teams deploy hyper...
What makes Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) worth using?
NCI is a product with many tools and services but the one that, in my opinion, makes it better than similar products and worth using, is the full-stack lifecycle management. This capacity allows u...
Have you received reliable help from Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure's support when you contacted them?
NCI is one of the best out there. For any software, no matter how good it is, technical support makes it or breaks it for me. You may have an amazing product but if there is not anyone to help you ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Acropolis AOS, Nutanix AOS, Nutanix Acropolis
Sun ZFS Storage Appliance
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

St. Lukes Health System, the City of Seattle, Yahoo! Japan, Sligro, Empire Life, Hyundai AUS, and many others.
Translational Genomics Research Institute, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, CyberSolutions Inc., Y-Telecom, First Alliance Bank Zambia Limited, AZ Sint-Jan Brugge-Oostende, Mutlinet Pakistan, TDC A/S, Digi-Key Corporation, Thurgau Cantonal Bank
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Nutanix, Broadcom and others in HCI. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.